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Underemployed and Loving It

As the class of 2012 stumbles out of their plastic folding chairs and into the workforce, they’ll hear the same thing college graduates have been hearing since college for decades. You’re in the real world now, get a job. This is terrible advice.

Luckily, following it is near-impossible. According to Gallup, 32% of Americans aged 18-29 are underemployed or unemployed. However it is “jobs” are being counted, we’re not getting them. It can be a terrifying stat for recent-grads or anyone at the bottom end of that age spectrum, but it doesn’t have to be. We’re living in a twisty, unpredictable world, and that can’t be changed. But it can be embraced.

I’m 25, and I haven’t had a “job” since graduating – or I’ve gotten dozens of “jobs,” or something. It’s hard to keep track of, but luckily, it doesn’t matter. I’m a freelancer, and the statistics of the past are woefully unequipped to describe what are starting to look like the jobs of the future.

Here’s how the Bureau of Labor Statistics categorizes people:

People with jobs are employed.

People who are jobless, looking for jobs, and available for work are unemployed.

People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force.

I honestly have no idea which category I, or many of my friends, might belong to. I’m looking for jobs, and available for work, so I must be unemployed. But I also have jobs, so I’m employed. That would make me neither, so I’m not in the labor force. That seems off. The best way to describe me would be “underemployed,” but that implies that I somehow require more employment than I have, which isn’t true.

We’re living in what’s been called the “gig economy –” an era where security is a thing of the past and a job is dragging on when it lasts an entire year. You never make a bet without hedging it two or three times. When I get a gig, my first reaction is to get another. No day should go by without hustlin.’

The gig economy is a cruel place. It comes with all the inequalities of the old economy and throws a few more of its own in for good measure. Getting lucky once is no longer enough – every week feels like it can bring ruin or fortune. But it rewards some of the things that young people are famously good at: adaptability, flexibility, speed and reinvention. It’s intensely American, in all the best and all the worst ways. The system is rigged, but you have the feeling you can be the one to cheat it.

Horatio Alger, curiously enough, provides a model to follow for the gig economy. In his stories, the hero is always a hard-working, industrious young lad. But he never actually gets ahead because of that. He does some thing for the right guy at the right time, and he’s showered with success. The lesson isn’t to work hard all the time – it’s to work fast at the right time. The gig economy rewards precision over attrition.

There are a lot of problems with gigging — the lack of security doesn’t play well with having a family, which I don’t. Health insurance goes to people with jobs — gigging requires either an invincible mindset, perfect health or a higher income. And there’s no unemployment for people who were never technically employed. The troubling likelihood of failing every day of the week except one can be a punishing mental burden. But there’s always going to be a tradeoff between security and freedom. The classic American Dream is a struggle between those two poles — the white picket fence and the open road. The best way to deal with the impossibility of the former is to realize you already have the latter.

The world has yet to adapt to this changing notion of employment – Sara Horowitz, head of the Freelancer’s Union, has written extensively on Washington’s inability to deal with the jobs of the new economy. But being out ahead is scary for all the right reasons. You’ll be making it up as you go along, but you’ll have something else along the way. Traditional employment asks you to get a job first and a life second. Freelancing knows that those two can be one and the same.

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Excellent post. I had the exact same thoughts, and same challenges, when I got laid off (having done as told and gotten a job after graduation). The “gig economy” is more robust now, but is still a no-man’s land in terms of “government statistics.” The way unemployment is calculated is in dire need of a revamp.

Freelancing is exhilarating, humbling and depressing. I preferred it to endlessly applying for jobs though, a process which is simply demoralizing. At least with freelancing, you know if you’ve done well or not.

One thing I’d suggest to those looking to freelance, especially freelance writing is to read The Well-Fed Writer, Strength Finder 2.0, Smart Choices and The Entrepreneur Equation. Of all the business-related books I’ve read, I’ve found those the most useful/helpful, both when starting out and along the way.

It’s effectively become work to find work, which is what drove us to start Hourly.com The job boards are focused on full time wage employment with long vetting cycles which does not work for people in the gig economy. Have to be nibble and smart to make the most of every hour.

Great post and I wanted to share that while the government has not studied this economy, the State of Independence initiative from MBO Partners has projected national trends in gigs and other forms of solo employment. Check it out for fun stats like how many people ever want to return to traditional work (hint: much less than you’d think) and also what independent work looks like across the generations. http://www.mbopartners.com/state-of-independence/.

Dave — We’d love to feature some millenial stories in our “Meet the Independents” spread. Can you or your readers send some our way?

The fact is there is no doubt that independent work is here to stay. What today is seen as a ‘sub-economy’ will be the future of work by the end of the decade. We predicted that at GigaOM. http://gigaom.com/2011/12/08/mbo-partners-network-2011/.

Thanks again for a timely post. We’ll be sure to send you the results of our Millenial breakout report when we release the 2nd annual MBO Partners Independent Workforce Index this fall.

Try explaining to your employer who is trying to verify your work history your year of gigging. Impossible. You look foolish in the process, despite it being the most valuable experience of my short career.

“Freelance”, “consultants’, call it what you will but this isn’t something new. If anything technology (the Internet) has made it easier to find work. hourly.com, odesk.com and several other sites are making it easier of for the individual to find work. That said there is still a market for you to build a stable of people that work with in the same environment.

We see this often among software developers who will build a small team of 6 or more people and then hire a business person whose sole mission is to go and get contracts so the 6 people can keep working.

It’s great to discover the freelance world but it can be improved and there is opportunity to develop it more from a “gig” to consistent work.